Agreements following achieved results

The parties were able to meet, they collaborated and obtained results together, this step will allow them to decide the fate of the results obtained.

There are two main types of agreements at this stage: performance management agreements and technology transfer agreements. These agreements give concrete expression to the intention of the parties during the negotiation of the collaboration agreement. If the intention of the parties is to be co-owners of the results, they will move towards a results management agreement, while if the idea is to transfer the results to a third party, they will move towards a technology transfer agreement.

Results management agreements

The purpose of results management agreements is to specify the rights and obligations of the parties on the results of scientific research. It is in these agreements that the parties decide what steps will be taken to protect their results, designate the party that will be in charge of the steps and define their respective shares, generally according to their financial or scientific contributions during the collaboration. At this stage, it is not yet a question of getting a financial benefit from the results, but of defining the rules of the game for a possible exploitation of the results. A typical example is the agreement of co-ownership of the results.

Technology transfer agreements

Faced with results likely to be industrially applicable, the owner generally has two possibilities, either to exploit them himself or to contractually delegate their exploitation to third parties in exchange for a consideration. As the University does not have the mission of economically valorizing the results of its research, the choice will be made, in most cases, to transfer the technology to a third party, preferably a spin-off or a private company. This transfer of technology can be done in various ways depending on the intellectual property involved. There are two main types of agreements that are the pure and simple transfer of the technology and the granting of licenses.

A transfer of the technology occurs when the rights holder transfers to a third party all of its exclusive rights to a technology, without any restriction in time or other conditions. The technology leaves the holder's assets permanently.

The holder may also choose to give the authorization to the third party to perform, in a territory and for a given period of time, one or more of the "acts" covered by the exclusive rights on technology, this authorization is given, is a "license".  Here the technology remains the property of the University, which only gives it on a "rental" basis.

Jean-Léon KABORE - +32(0)81 72 50 48 – juriste.adre@unamur.be